Our Trip to New York

We had the best trip to New York over Thanksgiving. The weather was good, the company was great, and the food was delicious! We spent a week between Upstate New York and New York City. We even threw a day trip to Vermont in there. This was by far the most time that I’d spent up in New York, and I had such a great time!

Prepare yourself, this is a rather lengthy post, but I’ve attempted to make it as visual as possible so you can get the story by scanning the pics as well as reading the text. Also, we ate many meals at Jeremy’s parents’ house but I wasn’t able to capture all of those so this blog post visually focuses on our dining experiences.

The bulk of our dining experiences took place while we were in NYC. A few of those were in Brooklyn where Jeremy’s brother (Mat) and his fiancée (Elena) live. We actually spent two nights in Brooklyn too. They’ve got a great little neighborhood called Park Slope right off Prospect Park. Their street is lined with Brownstones and bustling with activity. It’s a very cozy looking neighborhood. Definitely a place I could live.

We arrived on Sunday and our first meal was at Bierkraft in the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn. It’s a place known for great craft beer and huge sandwiches. Alas, I wasn’t up for a beer that day, but I did have a delicious vegetarian sandwich lined with roasted eggplant, fresh mozzarella, basil Marcona almond pesto, olives arugula and hot pepper relish. It was a huge sandwich and a very tasty one. I also had Zapp’s Voodoo chips on the side. Props for reppin’ Louisiana! That night we just had pizza at Mat’s place because Jeremy and I were super tired from our trip.

Monday’s breakfast consisted of the tastiest scone I have ever eaten. It was a glazed scone with poppy seeds and apricots from the Ladybird Bakery in Brooklyn (also in Park Slope). Totally delicious. It was so light on the inside and slightly crispy on the outside. This was the perfect scone. Really.

Afterward we headed down to NYC to check things out and eat some good food. We met my friend Blake and his friend Mike and had lunch at Momofuku. Jeremy and I had been once before, but we had to go again. The food was so delicious. I’ve made a collage of some of the food we had there. There was more, but it wasn’t as pretty to include here. The dishes (clockwise) are fish ramen, smoked chicken wings, roasted rice cakes, soy sauce eggs and pickled vegetables. Of course everything was very tasty. I really loved the chicken wings and the soy sauce eggs.

After our amazing lunch, we headed off for some day drinking in NYC. We hit up McSorley’s, the oldest bar in NYC. It’s a great old place with sawdust on the floor and over 100 years worth of memorabilia on the walls. They have a wood-burning stove for a heater. The bartender was this great older gentleman. My friend Blake knows him from going in there often. It was a good way to kick off the day.

Afterward, we headed over to Daniel Boulud’s DBGB. Some people got a snack, but I was pretty full from lunch still so I just got this delicious shandy that you see below. It was an IPA with grapefruit soda. Totally delicious. I’m going to recreate the recipe and share it with you here on this blog soon… at some point.

On Monday evening we headed Upstate to spend a few days with Jeremy’s parents. We had a quick dinner at Grand Central Station and arrived at Jeremy’s parents house around 10:30 pm. We were exhausted and soon went to bed. On Tuesday, we decided to head to Vermont for a little sightseeing. It’s so beautiful and quaint up in that part of the country. We took mostly back roads for our 3+ hour trip up to the Vermont Country Store.

Before we got to the store we stopped off in Bennington, VT for a bite of lunch. We ate a cute little restaurant called Your Belly’s Deli. I had a very tasty grilled chicken salad and a glass of iced tea. Jeremy had a delicious wrap filled with avocado and veggies. It was a good little lunch.

Afterward, we were off to our final destination, the Vermont Country Store. This is huge general store filled with everything you can imagine from cheese to soap to clothes to tools. We spent about an hour in there just looking around and checking things out. One of our buys was this delicious Vermont Cheddar. They cut fresh slices daily from the cheese block. Truly, some of the best cheddar I’ve ever eaten.

That evening we got back to Jeremy’s parents house and went to this delicious Chinese restaurant called Millhouse Panda for dinner. This wasn’t your standard ho-hum place. It was an informal setting but was totally tasty. We started out with some cabbage and carrots in a vinegary dressing. Next I had a rice cake soup with pork and mushrooms. Finally, I finished my meal with curried rice noodles. The meal was amazing – below is a photo collage. YUM.

On Wednesday, we spent much of the day finishing up our shopping for Thursday’s big Thanksgiving Day feast. We drove up to Millerton and visited the Harney and Sons retail store. They are purveyors of fine tea and have a very cute little shop in a quaint town. We bought lots of loose tea leaves, and Jeremy also picked up a very nice tea cup.

Meals that day consisted of a meat and cheese spread for lunch that we picked up at Adams Fairacre Market, a fantastic grocery store market in Poughkeepsie. We picked up the turkey and our supplies from there. Dinner that evening was a creamy tomato bisque and Italian sandwiches. I cooked for the family. It was delicious! The tomato bisque recipe is coming to the blog soon.

On Thursday we had a very delicious Thanksgiving meal. I cooked a Brussels sprouts salad and some sweet potato biscuits. Both recipes will come to the blog eventually. We had a lovely meal with Jeremy’s immediate family and their neighbors. Good times.

On Friday we set out to do some sight-seeing. We visited both the Vanderbilt Mansion and FDR’s home. Both were truly gorgeous and breath-taking sights. They are located very close to one another right along the Hudson River in Hyde Park. For lunch we ate at the Eveready Diner. This place had a menu so large it made my head spin. But I was finally able to settle on the mac and cheese and a lovely salad with grilled chicken and apples straight from their own orchard. Delicious meal.

Friday night was another quick meal of pizza. We were heading back down to the city early on Saturday morning so everyone wanted something low-key and easy for dinner. Our trip was quickly coming to an end. We really enjoyed our four days Upstate.

On Saturday morning, Jeremy’s parents cooked us a delicious farewell breakfast. They whipped up a frittata and we had toast, juice and coffee with that. A great way to end our visit Upstate and to start our journey back to the city. We took the train back down to Grand Central Station. From there we hopped a subway back over to Brooklyn to drop off our luggage then we set off for lunch.

Lunch was a lovely little meal from Prime Meats in Brooklyn. It’s a small place over in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood. It’s definitely German inspired with a smart decor reminiscent of turn of the century New York eateries. I had the most delicious avocado sandwich for lunch. It was served on potato bread with crispy shallots, bibb lettuce, spicy mayo, sprouts and of course, avocado! I also had a side of crispy and delicious fries. YUM.

We spent most of the rest of the day walking around Manhattan hanging out and visiting various places. One of the places we visited was Eataly. In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s this huge Italian grocery – like a whole block huge. They serve food at various outlets inside the place. It was PACKED with people. Like tiny trickles of single file people walking through the crowds packed. We didn’t buy anything there but did our best to look around. Below is a picture I snapped of their meat counter.

We had a tasty snack at La Maison du Macaron. As you can see below they had a huge selection of macarons and other French pastries. I had the mango and passion fruit macarons with a cafe au lait on the side. The macarons were very delicious – light and crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. Perfect.

Another stop we made was at Dean & DeLuca. This wasn’t quite as packed as Eataly but was still busy. We just walked in to peruse the store. I got two cool photos below. The top is of their blue cheese selections. Some stores have whole cheese sections that aren’t even as large as the blue cheese section here at D&D. At the bottom is a Serrano ham leg on a stand. It appears that they just slice directly from it to serve customers. Anyway, I thought it looked pretty cool.

That evening we headed back to Brooklyn and spent the evening in the Williamsburg neighborhood. We attended the Brooklyn Night Bazaar, a cool annual craft and art market. It was in an old warehouse and had a really cool vibe. We spent a couple of hours there looking at art and watching kids play soccer on an indoor makeshift field. Good times.

Afterward we headed over to The Bedford restaurant for our last meal in New York. The Bedford is a tiny little place with a hip vibe. But not too hip, of course. I had the tastiest warm apple cider there. It was sweet and tart and cinnamony all at the same time. It was perfect. My dinner was an orecchiette pasta with roasted cauliflower, dried cherries, pecorino romano cheese and toasted bread crumbs. It was divine! Probably the best thing I had all trip, although it’s very hard to choose.

Alrighty, still with me here? Good and thank you!! I appreciate you sticking with it to the very end. In all, we had a great time in New York. The food, company and surroundings were fantastic. It was a busy but relaxing trip. Definitely just the vacation I needed!

What are some of your favorite places in New York that we should check out on our next trip?